Step 4 to Buying a Home: Find Your Dream Home

Is there anything more exciting than shopping for a home? For most, it's an exhilarating process that comes with lots of different emotions: excitement, anxiety, stress, happiness, fear. Let us reassure you -- if you're feeling one or more of those emotions, that's totally normal! Our initial buyer consultation and your conversations with the lender should have answered a lot of your questions, but you will have many more -- and that's normal! Whether this is your first home purchase or you're a veteran homebuyer, the process is really never the same twice; it's our job to guide you and help along the way.

The most important step happens right now: finding the right home. If we haven't already set you up on an MLS search, we will get that going for you, and you will begin to receive those MLS results regularly -- you can choose how frequently you receive new property updates and whether you receive them immediately or in a daily digest.

When the MLS email comes to your inbox, we need you to do a couple of things:

1. Check the MLS email daily (or whatever frequency you've chosen to receive them) and review all of the properties we’ve sent you that day. Choose properties you want to see and let us know via text or email, whatever is more convenient for you. We’ll then be in touch with you within 24 hours to set up a time to see those properties.
2. Manage the properties in your search portal. The MLS search portal will come with three options: Save as Favorite, Save as Possibility, or Discard Listing. Properties you want to think about longer mark as Save as Possibility. Properties you definitely don’t like mark as Discard Listing. If you have any questions about a particular property, just send us a quick email and we will find the answers to those questions as quickly as possible.
3. If there’s something you love and want to see asap, shoot us a quick email or text us rather than waiting for us to contact you and let us know when you’re available and what you want to see. That way we can set up the showing ASAP.  Remember, a lot of properties (unless they are vacant) require 24 hours notice for showings, so we cannot always guarantee that we will be able to see a house or condo the same day. Also, occupied properties are usually available to be seen Monday through Friday from 9am – 7:30pm and Saturday and Sunday from 10am – 6:30pm. Sometimes sellers will allow us to view a property outside of those hours, but it’s up to the individual seller. Also, during the spring and summer, great properties sell in 3-4 days, so it’s important that you review the MLS email daily so we can jump on a great property as soon as you see it.
4. Once we know when you’re available, we’ll set up the showings and email you where we are meeting and when.
5. Remember to wear comfortable slip on shoes for showings as we may need to take them on and off at each property. 
6. We’ll email you the MLS listing sheets ahead of time so you can look at them on your phone during the showing so no need for you to bring anything other than snacks or drinks if you think you might get hungry.

While you’re looking at the MLS feeds each day we’ll also be networking our contacts to find out about homes, when possible, before they hit the market. This is not a guarantee, but we are always asking around about our buyer clients' needs, so it's a possibility that we can get into a property before it's listed in the MLS.

At this point there should be no need for you to continue to look on other sites such as Zillow, Trulia, realtor.com, etc. as all of those properties should be showing up in your MLS feed. If one isn’t for some reason let us know so we can tweak the search parameters of your MLS feed.

But remember: even the MLS isn't always correct 100% of the time; it's our job -- yours and ours -- to verify that what we see in the MLS is correct (click here to read more about the accuracy of the information contained in the MLS).

Now on to the showings!